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[FatHat]

Something to consider: when looking for inspiration, we usually look to good games for ideas.

Maybe a better approach when looking for inspiration is to look at bad games that had a lot of potential they never lived up to, figure out why, and instead pull ideas from those. I'm not suggesting all bad games are worth remakes of course, but a lot of them have interesting ideas but flawed execution.

If you had to think of a bad game to remake, what would it be? And why?

[Curseman]

Assuming that I had all of the resources of the game's creator available, I think Oblivion would be a good one to try starting over again with.  Morrowind is one of my all-time favorites.  By comparison, Oblivion had extremely messily implemented level scaling, a dearth of unique, hand-made content in favor of generic, copy-pasted stuff, less freedom in a lot of ways, fewer player abilities, and generic, repetitive environments.

I think if they gave up a bit of the quantity of their content in exchange for more unique, quality content they would've had a much better game.  Some of the new ideas were good, but with bad implementations, like the NPC AI.

I guess it's not so much a bad game as it is one that I personally consider to be flawed and that didn't live up to its potential.

[FatHat]

Assuming that I had all of the resources of the game's creator available, I think Oblivion would be a good one to try starting over again with.  Morrowind is one of my all-time favorites.  By comparison, Oblivion had extremely messily implemented level scaling, a dearth of unique, hand-made content in favor of generic, copy-pasted stuff, less freedom in a lot of ways, fewer player abilities, and generic, repetitive environments.

I think if they gave up a bit of the quantity of their content in exchange for more unique, quality content they would've had a much better game.  Some of the new ideas were good, but with bad implementations, like the NPC AI.

I guess it's not so much a bad game as it is one that I personally consider to be flawed and that didn't live up to its potential.

Oblivion really was a bummer. Level scaling is one of those ideas that seems good in theory, but turns out to really suck. It makes every area very generic since there's no sense of danger or risk, or any sense of great reward, which takes away any incentive to explore. Why have such a big beautiful world if every part of it is going to be exactly the same. 

[s0]

Yeah, Oblivion sucked. But I'm not particularly interested in making a "good" version of it. I have Morrowind for that.

I like to think that Borderlands is the "good" version of Hellgate London.

I'd love to see someone make Spore as it was originally envisioned. It could have been a world-changing game, instead it's just a mildly enjoyable and in many ways broken one.

[falsion]

I've always wanted someone to remake "Cheetahmen" into a playable game. It had the best concept and best theme song ever.

[LemonScented]

Oblivion really was a bummer. Level scaling is one of those ideas that seems good in theory, but turns out to really suck. It makes every area very generic since there's no sense of danger or risk, or any sense of great reward, which takes away any incentive to explore. Why have such a big beautiful world if every part of it is going to be exactly the same. 

I know I'm in the minority, but I liked the level scaling in Oblivion. I don't like having my arse handed to me by monsters way too hard for me, for making the simple mistake of investigating an interesting-looking ruin without knowing what's inside, and I don't get much joy either from wielding my godlike magical powers and unparallelled fighting skills against a dungen that happens to be full of giant rats and skeletons. I don't want to go to a place, realise I'm outclassed, and then have to make a mental note to swing back that way in the future after I've grinded by doing one of the magically-repopulating low level dungeons for the umpteenth time. There was a difficulty slider in the game options menu, and once I'd tweaked it to the right place for me I managed to find a satisfying level of challenge which lasted right throughout the game (with the possible exception of the last 10% of the game when I was just stupidly powerful).

Anyways, the first game that sprang to mind for a remake would be Black & White. The premise was interesting, the technology behind it all was "okay" for the time, some of the gameplay elements had potential, and then they ruined it all with abysmal level design. There's something in the core of that game that could be good if it was handed over to someone other than Molyneaux.

[s0]

The reason why I dislike the scaling in Oblivion doesn't doesn't really have to do with "challenge".

Firstly, it's what FatHat said about making the world more samey and taking away the incentive to explore, and secondly, one of the biggest I enjoy playing "open-world RPGs" like Elder Scrolls is that they give you the illusion that you're just part of a simulated world and not the "center of attention". The level scaling breaks that illusion, and consequently breaks the immersion into the game's world.

[falsion]

screw Oblivion, give me The

done correctly.

[Kadoba]

Fury. It was a player-verses-player based online game that had a lot of potential. But it was poorly implemented with very few features. The graphics were very intensive on my moderately powered machine and it still managed to look like crap. It crashed and burned badly. Personally, player-verses-player combat is my favorite thing about MMOs but I'm sick to death of being forced to grind away a month or two of my free time to get to a point where I can participate.

[Richard Kain]

I think not necessarily bad games, but games that did not live up to their potential. My choice would be Hunter Hunted. This was a game with some pretty sweet ideas when it came to gameplay, but the premise and graphical style brought it down somewhat. If this game had been created as an on-line multiplayer game, it could have kicked some serious ass. With modern on-line gaming being what it is, I think the time is right to revisit this concept.

[Dave Matney]

Chakan: the Foreverman





This was my first Genesis game, which my mom got my brother and I for Christmas, based entirely off the box art (yeah, my mom was pretty awesome).  The concept is solid, but, as anyone who's ever played it knows, it's impossible.

(Really, to respect that fact, you HAVE to play it... someone telling you how hard it is doesn't justify it.)


And I'd have to second Hunter Hunted.

[tim-bo-jay]

Mirrors Edge

I personally loved this game but I know a lot of people didn't like it and I can understand why, it wasn't flawless. Would be nice to see someone take the concept and improve on it (maybe in third person so you can judge things better too)

[Alex Vostrov]

Another reason why looking at bad games is beneficial is that identifying the reason for failure is easier than causes for success.  Usually, you can learn a good, clear lesson from a game that bombed.

I would re-make KoTOR II - I thought that the idea of training a Jedi apprentice would be really neat.

[Aik]

Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - there are great RPGs inside these bad games. Arcanum needs the combat system and a large amount of combat thrown out, Bloodlines needs the entire last half the game thrown out and replaced with stuff that doesn't suck.

[Nektonico]

Chakan: the Foreverman





This was my first Genesis game, which my mom got my brother and I for Christmas, based entirely off the box art (yeah, my mom was pretty awesome).  The concept is solid, but, as anyone who's ever played it knows, it's impossible.

(Really, to respect that fact, you HAVE to play it... someone telling you how hard it is doesn't justify it.)

Aaah, Chakan, such a cool game. I remember that one. I even had a poster for it off a magazine back then. It has a cool backstory, supposedly you are a swordsman who defeats death on a one on one duel, thus attaining immortality, but cursed to suffer forever, lest he slay all of the evil beasts of earth, only then being able to find rest. (yeah, doesnt really sound that original, come to think about it)

Actually, according to wikipedia, its based off a comic series.(news to me)

Also, this:

"Upon defeating this second set of levels, Chakan is treated to an ending in which his curse is not lifted. After the credits roll for some time, he is allowed to fight an extremely difficult enemy boss (consisting of an H.R. Giger looking creature on a throne carried by what appear to be midgets). The player only gets one try. Doing this without the aid of an emulator with the ability to save and load game states is virtually impossible.

If the player succeeds at this task, they receive the "real ending" which was unfortunately not implemented by the game developers. It consists of the hourglass background used in the plot exposition screens but without any text."

Evil developers ...  
You were never supposed to see the real ending. Just meant to think there was one.  

[Aquin]

I'm gonna second Hunter Hunted AND The Cheetahmen. 

Also I think Yar's Revenge could benefit from all this 3D gloss.  NOTHING IS SACRED.

[FatHat]

I really wish someone would remake Sexy Hiking. Using the hammer to climb things was actually really cool, it was just made too frustrating.

[Durza]

Hey, I liked Oblivion...it isn't so bad if you get a few mods for it. I was making a mod myself a while back, which I intended to add more detail to the game world to make things less generic, sadly, I never finished it before I left the TES community (I'll go ahead and say they need to get their collective britches unknotted).

A remake of Sexy Hiking might be interesting, but it wouldn't be Sexy Hiking. If it wasn't god-awful, it wouldn't be Sexy Hiking.

[Paint by Numbers]

Action 52 gets a lot of bad rep, but to be honest, I really love a lot of the games on there. The music, at least, is sort of unique in that it varies the most out of any game I've played. It ranges from abysmal (most of it) to hauntingly good (the second level of Lollipops - YMMV) to FUCK YEAH (Cheetahmen, YMMNV).

Lots of the games are interesting or fascinating in some way, and the ones that aren't are still interesting just because of how horrific they are. I've had a bit of an obsession with glitches since I was a kid, and Action 52 has a million of 'em, from the way the unsettling Non Human breaks off mid-level to my personal favorite part of the entire game (apart from the Cheetahmen) - the third level of Lollipops, where the sound programming just breaks. Also, the amusing event when you try to start Alfredo, only to realize that the programmers did such a shoddy job that that game in particular will only run on non-cycle-exact emulators. Spectacularly bad programming and lack of playtesting, or an ahead-of-their-time, almost prophetic knowledge of emulator technology?

In any case, I'd imagine a remake of every game on there would be wonderful (with lots of artificial glitches and remixed music to keep a bit of the original intact). In fact, I've been trying to do this for quite a while, but I've never been able to, so I can really only hope someone else pulls it off.

Woah, didn't mean to write a love letter to Action 52. My point still stands!

[Demon Lizardman]

That stinkin mario game with hotels.